From the late 1980s, allegations of sexual abuse of children associated with Catholic institutions and clerics in several countries started to be the subject of sporadic, isolated reports. In Ireland, beginning in the 1990s, a series of criminal cases and Irish government enquiries established that hundreds of priests had abused thousands of children over decades.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_sexual_abuse_cases_in_Ireland
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_sexual_abuse_cases_in_Ireland